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Connecting to a Server by Mounting your HDA

I was having trouble in Ubuntu accessing my network drives. I used "Connect to server..." under "Places" and I was able to access the files fine until I needed to access them in Firefox or other programs to upload them.

It was explained to me that it's being mounted via Nautilus and that's not truely "mounted" in the linux sense.

Here's the resolution. (for each boot into linux)

NOTE: you may need to install smbfs first with

sudo aptitude install smbfs

I opened up a terminal window. In my user folder, there were already folders called "Music", "Pictures", "Documents" and "Videos". I wanted to use those folders so I didn't have to create more. If they didn't exist though, they could be created using the command:

mkdir Music

Then of course repeat the command replacing the word "Music" with "Pictures" "Documents" and "Movies" or "Videos".

Now time to mount.
I used the following commands (of course, replace the username with your username unless you are also kevin):

sudo mount.cifs '\\hda\Music' Music -o user=kevin

sudo mount.cifs '\\hda\Pictures' Pictures -o user=kevin

sudo mount.cifs '\\hda\Docs' Documents -o user=kevin

sudo mount.cifs '\\hda\Movies' Videos -o user=kevin

And that was it. Now the files in Amahi are mounted as if they are local files on my computer.

Just to check, I opened up Firefox, logged into Gmail, composed a new message and clicked "Attach a file" then "Browse". Sure enough, the files were all there.

Keep in mind, this does not auto-mount so you would have to do this again each time you boot to linux. An auto-mount solution would be helpful.

Permanent mount:

Tested under Ubuntu 9.10, All the credit for this belongs to dmizer. I simply adapted to the hda. Original thread here
In this example we will mount the hda's shared music on our desktop. It will appear as a drive.
Also Works fine under Fedora 14/15/16 as well, minus the Ubuntu-specific commands below (such as 'aptitude'). You may need to install samba and cifs utilities in Fedora. (May 28, 2012)

NOTE: you may need to install smbfs first with

sudo aptitude install smbfs

First create a new folder to mount your hda files: sudo mkdir /media/Music

We need to create a credential file to mount on startup: sudo nano /root/.smbcredentials

Add the following lines: (You must change hda_username and hda_password to the correct user name and password for the hda to connect to):

username=hda_username
password=hda_password

Save the file by hitting ctrl+x, type "y" to save the buffer, and <enter> to exit.

Now, change the permissions of the file so only root can read and edit it:

For Ubuntu 9.10 user (Karmic) There is a bug reported, that will prevent opening the files: Files owned by root / "The folder contents could not be displayed"
The fix use this, instead to edit the fstab file: